Martin: Good commentary on the lack of IPv6 at Interop. There are lots of us on the inside of Interop that completely agree with you. When it came time to build both the eNet (the network that runs the show floor and the rest of the show) and the iLabs (the interoperability demonstrations), there were a lot of us pushing hard to have IPv6. We figured that we wouldn't necessarily have a full IPv6 presence, but we wanted to elect an IPv6 "czar" who would help to make sure that each of the areas had an answer to the question "what about IPv6?"

Unfortunately, it just didn't happen. We've done IPv6 in the iLabs before: in fact, once when it first came out, and once a few years ago. (Our team web page from the previous time is still out there). However, as you're probably aware, IPv6 is a fast-moving target.

We were partially torpedoed because the ISP for Interop didn't have native IPv6 available---so we couldn't route it around the show floor. (Maybe Hurricane Electric wants to be the Interop ISP for Vegas, 2009?) But we also were the victims of not-enough-budget, too-many-tasks and IPv6 fell to a lower priority.

My personal recommendation is that you dive in yourself and volunteer to be the IPv6 czar for next time. Interop is a for-profit, but most of us that make the technical side of it run do it without any pay. I bet that if you stood up and said that you'd be in charge of IPv6 for Interop for 2009, you'd have an opportunity to make sure that the IPv6 message was built-in deep and strong the next time around.

Speaking entirely unofficially and without any authority at Interop whatsoever,

Joel Snyder
Opus One
(iLabs NAC team)